Her illness came with the first humid showers of spring, curtains of rain gliding down their windows as they drove to and from Beacon Hills Memorial. Stiles was nine when his mom had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. After months of forgotten appointments, bouts of strange behavior and slipping judgment, his mom had finally decided to go in for a thorough check-up. After her diagnosis, their lives had changed completely.
Suddenly, Stiles wasn't allowed to stay with his mom unsupervised. The woman who practically breathed sunlight and worshiped the outdoors, stopped leaving their house. She stopped making breakfast with Stiles every Sunday morning, she neglected her beloved flowerbeds out front, and began to lose her appetite with time.
Right before his eyes, Stiles' mother was deteriorating.
She eventually stopped leaving her bed or showering regularly. She would suddenly become angry and scream at Stiles and his dad, or breakdown crying out of nowhere. The worst, however, was whenever she would disappear. She got confused sometimes, and would just wander out of the house—usually still in her pajamas—and sympathetic neighbors or pitying townsfolk would call up the station to let his dad know they had found her and where to pick her up.
Almost just as bad, were the times when his poor mother would come out of an episode, realize the chaos and pain she had caused—sometimes even in the middle of screaming at her family—and he could see her breaking on the inside. She cried the hardest in those moments.
An outspoken part of Stiles hated himself for it, but he was almost relieved when it came time for his mom to move into the hospital, only because he felt so incredibly dumb and helpless every time his mother lost herself to her illness. At least the doctors knew how to comfort her and make her better. Right?
Wrong.
That cold beige hospital room made his mom miserable, and Stiles' time with his mom was cut in half once she went there. As usual, his dad would drop him off at his best friend Scott's house when he went to work, and many days Stiles would secretly borrow Scott's bike and go straight to the hospital to see his mom. Melissa always tattled on him to his dad, but other than a weary sigh when he came to pick Stiles up from the hospital, and a ruffling of his buzzed hair, his dad didn't scold him at all.
It was the sixth of June, the morning had been a mess of warm summer showers, green-tinted skies, and distant thunder storms. It was also Stiles' tenth birthday. He had begged his dad to allow him to take the day off school and let him spend the day with his mom. She had been sleeping more and more those past few weeks, looking weaker and more tired every time she woke up, but he didn't mind. He would spend hours at her bedside if only it meant he could have a few spare minutes with his mom. His dad was reluctant to leave him on his own for so long, since he had an important meeting that morning to attend to and couldn't join him until around noon, but Stiles persisted.
He should have stayed home. He should have listened to his dad and waited for him to come visit later.
It was not even an hour into sitting vigil at his mother's bedside, that his world came crashing down. The limp hand in his grasp twitched, he saw her eyelids flutter as her eyes rolled behind them, the breath in her throat stuttered and seized, all the while the wall of machines around her lit up like a Christmas tree and alarms sounded around the room. Stiles was ripped from his mother's tightening grasp by a swarm of frantic doctors and nurses, shoved to the back wall of the room and forgotten as they began shoving needles inside his mom and flashing pen lights in her unresponsive eyes.
He stood frozen, ears ringing and chest feeling like it was slowly filling with water, as a man in blue scrubs pressed both hands over his mom's chest and began pushing down hard , again and again. Again and again and again andagainagainagainagain --
" Clear!" her pale blue hospital gown lay open, bearing her unmoving body to the room. Stiles wanted to shout at them for making her cold, for pushing so hard on her chest, for pressing the gleaming metal paddles to her chest and the ribs below her armpit. But his lips were numb, his whole body was numb. And then his sweet, frail mama gave a violent jolt on the bed. The alarms sang their droning continuous note. She was shocked again, and Stiles could feel the wetness on his cheeks. She was shocked again; he was trembling where he stood. A nurse put a hand on the shoulder of the doctor holding the paddles, stopping him from doing it again.
Someone in the room announced the time and for the first time, a nurse seemed to notice Stiles' presence. She reached out for him, but suddenly Stiles was running. He had to get away, away from the glassy amber eyes staring up into the harsh lights, away from the sight of his mothers' still, thin chest laid bare to the room, away from that awful shriek of machines, and away from the sad brown eyes of the nurse who noticed him. He had to get away from it all, before it managed to crush his thin bones under its incredible weight.
He burst out of the front doors of the hospital and into the muggy California air. He turned and began running down the sidewalk, as if he were going home, but he had barely made it a block when he tripped over the uneven sidewalk and fell onto his knees, skinning them through his jeans as well as the palms of his small hands. The pain was searing but it couldn't compare to the thundering storm inside his skull.
He stayed there, knelt on the street corner and sobbing on the damp cement. The hospital was on the outskirts of town, so the sidewalks were empty at that time, Stiles' only company the howling wind and a half-full parking lot of empty cars behind him. He could feel hot tears splattering the ground between his stinging hands, his hoarse wails stuttering through his quaking chest and echoing off the cars.
"Why the tears, little one?" Stiles jumped at the sudden deep voice behind him, scrambling back a foot as he turned around to face the stranger, landing on his butt in the hurried movement. Before him knelt a man, he looked young, younger than his dad but older than a teenager. He wore a black baseball cap with a dark blue hoody pulled up over it, but what caught Stiles attention the most, was the way the man's eyes were the color of the drink's dad liked to have sometimes late at night when he thought Stiles had gone to bed. A reddish-gold that gleamed from under the shade of the man's cap.
"You hurt hand?" He asked, gently taking ahold of Stiles' little wrist to examine the bloodied scrapes across his palms. The man had a thick accent cloaking his words. Stiles couldn't fully recognize where it was from, but it made the man's words sound blunt and authoritative. The sudden appearance of the strange man had frightened Stiles out of his tears momentarily, all he could do was silently nod at the stranger. The man clicked his tongue sadly as he looked down at Stiles. But there was something wrong about the man, something . . . insincere at the very core of his mannerisms. Though, Stiles didn't realize just what was off about the man, he still felt a haze of fear linger in the back of his mind.
"Would you like me make better?" The man smiled wide, too many white teeth bearing between his thin lips. As the man still had a hold on Stiles' wrist—a hold that was steadily growing tighter as they spoke—he hesitantly nodded. He felt like a frozen deer in the cross-hairs of a hunter, if he moved at the wrong time, he'd be done for. The man's grin widened and before Stiles realized what was happening, the man pulled his hand up to his face and swiped the flat of his tongue over the entirety of his palm. Stiles yelped and jerked his hand away in surprise and fear.
A deep chuckle rumbled out of the man at his reaction.
"Look little one, it better." he said, haphazardly gesturing to the hand Stiles clutched to his chest. Stiles wanted to get up and run, but he just knew that the man was faster than him, and they were too far from the hospital doors for anyone to hear him scream for help . Reluctantly, Stiles pulled his hand away from his chest and glanced down. His eyes widened and he flipped his hand over and then back again. Nothing. His hand was completely healed. No scabs or blood or scars, it didn't even sting any more. Somehow the man had fixed his hand.
As Stiles marveled over the unbroken skin of his palm, the man grabbed his other hand and healed it. Abruptly, Stiles shot up from the ground and grabbed ahold of the man's sleeve.
"My mom, she's hurt! Please, you have to help her!" He pleaded, trying to tug the man up onto his feet as well. The man, however, didn't react. Instead, he just kept grinning. Stiles continued to beg the man in vain, growing more and more hysteric as the adult seemed to find amusement in his panic.
"Stiles?" The hospital doors had been thrown open and his head shot up at the call of his name. It was his dad, red-eyed and looking distraught as he frantically scanned the sea of cars before him. The next few moments happened so fast.
"Dad!" Stiles sobbed, moving to step around the stranger and run into the familiar arms of his father. He was stopped by a bruising hand clamping down around his thin bicep. There was a roar of an engine behind him and a squeal of tires. John whipped around and his eyes finally locked onto the tear-streaked face of his son, just as a huge black van pulled up behind him and the crouched figure before him took hold of the boy.
"DAD!" Stiles screamed as the man finally stood and shoved him backwards. Equally strong hands hooked under Stiles' armpits and hoisted him up and back into the open cavern of the waiting vehicle. Stiles screamed and struggled against the unyielding hands, kicking out at the strange man who was climbing in after them. Over the man's shoulder, he could see his dad sprinting down the pavement with abandon. Stiles would likely never forget the look of anguish and terror on his dad's face as the door between them slid closed and the tires peeled over the asphalt.
Stiles continued to scream and kick at his abductors until he soon felt the sharp pinch of something piercing his throat. Darkness came on swift, thundering hooves.
...
His rise to consciousness was slow and syrupy, the repetitive throbbing of a nasty head ache greeting him before anything else. He was cold, the low hum of an air duct nearby pumping a constant flow of cool air into the space. He felt around groggily for a blanket or even a sheet to try to cover himself, but there was nothing but the thin, sheet-less mattress beneath him—not even a pillow for his pounding head.
He cautiously opened his eyes and was immediately greeted with two fierce stabs of pain right through his eye sockets at the blinding florescent light above him. Stiles groaned and rolled onto his side, covering his eyes with one hand and carefully peeking through his fingers to get some measure of his bearings. He was in a small room with one large overhead florescent light and white— well, everything! The ceiling, the walls, the floors, the bed beneath him, even the loose cotton t-shirt and draw-string pants were a light grey, barely a few shades darker than the rest of the room.
With the blazing white of reality surrounding him, it didn't take long for the fog to clear and for Stiles to remember the hospital, the man, and the van. In that moment, a wave of grief and fear warred within him, combining to produce a wheezing, sobbing mess of a boy on the thin cot. Stiles pushed himself into the corner and pulled his knees to his chest. His limbs were starting to go numb and his breathing was getting more ragged as it felt like his lungs were filling with water. The white walls were pressing in on him and he swore he felt the painted cement bricks around him grew hands and began tugging at his clothes and hair.
It took a long time for the panic to fade, but the looming dread and grief remained long after he regained control of his breathing once more.
He didn't know how long he sat there, curled up on the corner of the bed. There were no windows in the room, no clock. But once Stiles regained control of his faculties again and reexamined the room, he realized there were a few other things in the room. A single, lidless metal toilet on the right side of the room, next to a similarly smooth metal sink. On the sink sat a bar of soap smaller than his palm, a small white tube of what might be toothpaste, and a white tooth brush in a sealed clear wrapper. There was a door on the opposite side of the room, it had no handle from the inside, it appeared to be made of metal painted white, and it had a window but it was being covered by something on the other side. The last thing in the room, was a camera mounted to the ceiling and sealed within a clear plastic dome, pointed directly at him.
Grimacing at the thought of being watched by his captors, Stiles laid back down and turned his back to the camera. He laid like that for what felt like an hour before the familiar buzzing restlessness in his limbs had him up off the bed and pacing the room, counting bricks in the walls to try to quell the flitting creatures of his thoughts.
In the hours that followed, Stiles paced and fidgeted, he banged on the metal door and shouted for someone to let him out. He even spent a good hour silent and still with his ear pressed to the cold metal door, listening for any signs of life. He managed to catch the sound of muffle footsteps and quiet snippets of conversation from people passing by his door. It was usually in a language he couldn't understand, but that didn't stop him from pounding his fists on the door and calling out for help. Not that he ever got a response. Stiles knew it was likely that anyone on the other side of the door would be one of his captors, but he had to try something .
As time passed lethargically, Stiles' stomach began to rumble and cramp with the lack of food. He hadn't eaten anything since the morning of his birthday, and he had no idea how long he had been asleep for. Eventually, he had to start gulping down the water from the faucet in an attempt at quelling the painful cramping in his gut. Then he returned to the bed and laid down—once more facing the wall. Stiles pulled his arms into his shirt in a bid to keep some of his warmth, but it did little to chase away the chill. He pulled his knees up towards his chest as well.
Stiles tried to sleep, hoping that a nap would help replenish his strength and rid him of his still-present headache, but with the blinding light above, it seemed impossible. Instead, he was consumed by his thoughts. Visions of his mom, pale and still in the harsh medical lights burned behind his eyelids. The distant calls of his frantic dad echoed through the air-ducts . Would he ever return home? Would he be able to send his mom off properly? Would his dad ever find him? Would his captors kill him first? The boy stewed in those thoughts as the minutes ticked by uncounted.
Stiles was trying to recall the exact cadence of his mother's voice when she sang, when the room was suddenly plunged into complete darkness. He held his breath, waiting for something else to happen; perhaps they would come for him in the dark, or maybe they had forgotten about him and he would stay trapped in that inescapable room, left to starve. The fear feasted on the darkness and Stiles' deteriorating thoughts.
However, nothing happened.
No one came in, the door never opened, nothing grabbed at Stiles' limbs or sliced at his flesh. Nothing.
Once Stiles managed to calm down a bit, once he'd convinced himself that he was alright and nothing was coming for him in the shadows, he settled back down on the mattress. It took a long time for him to fall asleep, but eventually the exhaustion got the better of him.
...
He was awoken by the harsh glare of florescence against his closed lids. Stiles had only just rolled over onto his side and began blinking away the burning brightness, when there was a loud knock on the other side of the metal door. He only had time to push himself up and swing his legs over the side of the bed when the door unlocked and opened for two towering men dressed in dark muted colors. One of them was holding a plastic tray of food, while the other stood in the doorway and watched Stiles, waiting for him to try to make a run for it.
As the other man set the tray down on the ground in the center of the room and turned to leave without a word, the trembling boy finally found his voice.
"Please, Mister! I want to go home! I promise I won't tell, just let me go." The man paused and Stiles took it as his opportunity to plead for his freedom. "I'm all my dad has left. He needs me! Please . . . you've got the wrong kid! I'm scrawny and chatty, I get into trouble without even trying, I'm not worth it I swear!" Stiles exclaimed desperately. The man finally turned to meet his gaze, but instead of a look of hesitance and doubt, he just looked annoyed.
" Quiet cub, you won't be going anywhere. Better to forget your life before, you will be reborn soon enough." This man, much like the one who had taken him, also had a strong accent but his English wasn't nearly as broken. As Stiles puzzled over his strange words, the man spoke one last time before promptly leaving the room with his 'companion' and shutting the heavy door. "You should eat, you will need to be strong for what comes next."
That ominous departure left Stiles with a nauseating sense of hopelessness in his gut. Never the less, he knew the man was probably right, so he slid off the bed onto the floor and started slowly eating the plain lunch. It wasn't bad—a serving of steaming brown rice, a few peeled boiled eggs, a cup of milk, and a bowl of dark leafy greens—but the meal was clearly made with purely the thought of protein and nutrition in mind and therefore, tasteless. At least they're feeding me at all. . . he thought cynically as he spooned another gob of rice into his mouth.
When he finished, he set the tray in front of the door and climbed back onto his bed. He finally felt full and that helped a bit with the cold, but he now wished he had used his opportunity to talk to his captors in order to ask for a blanket—maybe even a pillow, or a sweatshirt and some socks.
The whole situation made Stiles want to curl up and cry on his mattress, to throw his tray at the door and make a mess of the room, to claw at the men with his blunt fingernails and latch his useless teeth onto their hands the next time they dared to enter the space. But his dad had told him once about situations like these, told him that if he was ever around someone dangerous to never try to be a hero or to make them mad. He told Stiles to always use his big brain of his and be smart .
So, he didn't throw a tantrum, he didn't break things and scream all the curse words he knew at the men or try to dash past them when the door opened again a few hours later with an equally bland lunch. He calmly sat on his cot and asked the stoic men if he could maybe have a blanket or warmer clothes. Neither of them responded or looked like they had even heard him, but he didn't ask again. And when he ate and finished his meal of fish, rice, steamed vegetables, and water: he didn't cry. No matter how much he missed his mom and dad, no matter how frustrated he was at being trapped and helpless, he refused to shed a tear. Because he knew he was being watched.
Wherever he moved in the room, the camera would follow. Even when he finally gave into the urges of his body and used the freezing steel toilet, he could feel it's omnipresent gaze on him. Out of everything that had been ripped out from his control, this one thing felt like something he could hold dominion over. No matter what, his captors wouldn't see him cry. He silently promised himself, his father, his . . . his mother, that he wouldn't cry.
And in that moment, though he didn't quite recognize the significance of it then, it felt like he was letting go of something vital. Without him fully realizing, Stiles severed the last vestiges of his childhood . He was still scared, still terrified beyond belief, but it made it all just a little bit easier to breathe. Like he was able to protect an integral part of himself by hiding it deep within his mind.
With dinner came a scratchy grey wool blanket. It smelled a bit of mildew and dust, but it was warm. Stiles still didn't trust his captors, but it did prove to him that as long as he played along and behaved, they were willing to grant him small comforts.